


deep sea

by kinpika



Category: Fable 2 (Video Game), Fable 3 (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Other relationships may appear - Freeform, little one-shots, other characters may appear - Freeform, this is not a love story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:02:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25748605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinpika/pseuds/kinpika
Summary: The first inkling of voice was a deep roll. Guttural in the lack of use, like it was roused from a deep sleep. Norman had only regaled one story, of Spires and bullets, to suggest simply awhy, but not so much a how. Picked all these little pieces together from the scraps of rumours that had crossed oceans.
Relationships: Hero of Bowerstone/Reaver (Fable)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

Norman barely survives the trip to The Leper’s Arms. Perhaps that was purely on the basis that Reaver considered him slightly more valuable than any other lackey he had employed recently. Or, simply due to the highly helpful information that leads Reaver to the waterfront.

Where there is far more cheer and pageantry than what he was used to. Tables and chairs drawn out, a bard singing and dancing between, with more ale spilling on the ground than making it into mouths. People, many of them, seemed to hover around his orbit, sidestepping him as he stood between it all, hands on his hips.

Finds the Hero, further along. Apparently remarkably comfortable, with more than one prostitute tucked under arm. And his feet barely make a sound, as he weaves his way through the remaining tables to where she sat, but she heard him. Saw him. That one milky white eye catching him with a grin to accompany. Her name was unbecoming, for all the bulk and brawn that was too long for the chair, and Reaver settled for simply detaching a sparrow to what lay before him: a would-be Hero. The kinds that surely had more than one sonnet written about physicality alone.

Reaver would make sure that it was not a wholly pleasant one either.

“Anna, Helen. _Margaret_.” A wink, on the last, as he greets the three who had made themselves quite comfortable, hands clasped behind his back. “Off you go.”

Rearranging themselves, Reaver gets half curtsies and sickly smiles, before watching them wave and giggle as they disappear into the larger crowd. Hero herself instead sighs, kicking up her feet onto the table, offering something that looked vaguely brown and smelt like dirt.

The first inkling of voice was a deep roll. Guttural in the lack of use, like it was roused from a deep sleep. Norman had only regaled one story, of Spires and bullets, to suggest simply a _why_ , but not so much a how. Picked all these little pieces together from the scraps of rumours that had crossed oceans. _How_ one had gone through life, so quiet, yet the loudest presence in the room?

Sparrow swallows thickly, wets lips unfamiliar with shapes and sounds. No, not Sparrow. The _Hero_ tries to speak. And he is bored. Waiting for a response, that is simply lost in the continuous humdrum of Bloodstone. As uninteresting as he should’ve expected from her. One doesn’t carry that title these days, and walk away with a wave of bowing fans.

Or, maybe they do. Reaver quite preferred that innate sense of fear and respect personally. Easier to control, hold the reigns on. And with the way she talked, voice pulled from the depths of the seas, similar to a creature or two that had met its demise at his hand, she should consider it.

“Thirsty?”

Pulling the end of the table, so as to let the Hero’s feet fall back to the ground, Reaver leans against it. “I think not. I may oversee the swine, but I do not drink with them.”

There’s a laugh that rolls deep in her chest. Forms a croaky sentence, emphasises the skin missing from the scar. “Only when they’re invited.”

“And so you do understand! Here I was thinking that you may not be as so well inclined as the rest. Good for you.”

She snorts, drains the rest of the beer, then abandons the bottle on the chair beside her. With a grace of practiced movements, it’s when she threads fingers over her stomach, giving him one look up and down, that he is reminded of. Someone being remarkably thorough in their assessment, and Reaver embraced it entirely. “If you are interested in seeing if the rumours hold up, I may be able to offer some—”

“The banshee is dead. I did my part. Now it’s your turn.”

“Truly? I was wondering what had managed to get them all so worked up.” That would do it, he added, as an afterthought. Norman had reported that a banshee had decided to take up residence over the port. Gliding through the masts, only to fall into the waters below. How oddly poetic.

Removing something from the back of a chair, she throws it at him. Almost half-heartedly, as he catches it in the air. Feels the cold immediately, that grates, hands that grow, reaching towards him. So powerful, and yet so dead. Pinched between thumb and forefinger, Reaver holds the rags out to the side, lips curled in mild disgust at such a thing.

“I would say congratulations, but your efforts don’t benefit me any more than they did for you. If anything, you have served the people. Aha, quite charming really.”

That earns him finally the barest amount of silence. Hers, only, but that was enough for now. Especially when he takes those three steps forward, to lean in. Smiling so wide and bright and watching the way her hands don’t move. Reaver does not care to consider that she was letting him close in, when they both knew he was a quicker draw.

After all, it’s why she came all the way to merry Bloodstone.

“One last job for you, my dear, and perhaps I will deign to oversee your little adventure, hm? All the way to wherever it is that you see fit to put Lord Lucien in the ground, and return in one piece. Just one little, teeny, tiny task, and my… _gun_ is yours. So to speak.”

She surveys him with a long look, not unlike the one previously given. Perhaps she finds truth in his words, as she stands, pulling a few more bottles from the table. “Lead on.” Speaking around the liquor.

With a nod, Reaver turns, and there is no point in fighting the grin that grew. Heroes. Never were the brightest bunch.


	2. Chapter 2

“You’re in my bed again.”

“So it seems.”

It takes one delicate pull, on the lines in her face, to have scars bunch and move. Tighten the frown around the one clear eye. He could count the crow’s claws there, just as he had any other night and day before this. But that’s not what he was there to do. Maybe another time, when sleep was not his friend.

For now, he finds himself seared by skin and lips and teeth. Those words do not haunt, but it is the sighs, and the ever lingering hold of why. Sparrow does not haunt him in the way spectres do, she will never. As forgettable as a moon that decided to wax or to wane, just as it had, any other night.

They both ask the question, with which they both refuse to answer. Sparrow’s words do not hold surprise, just the acknowledgement of orbital pulls, and. Here. Hands. Touch. _You_ are here, once more.


	3. Chapter 3

Pistol. Held against her chin. Smile was too wide and bright. All knowing and all seeing, too much like the seer who had counted all of Sparrow’s blessings before she could herself. Once, Sparrow had fooled herself into looking at the woman like a mother, someone unexperienced and beautiful on paper.

Now, she felt her heels dip over the edge. Threaten to pull her down, deep into the crypt below. And who knows — there might have been others down there. Stuck in the cage, iron on the lock. Fallen to the same fate over the last decades, centuries.

Theresa does not reach out. For she knows what will be, and what will follow. Pull at whatever string would suit her best, and in this moment, Sparrow’s life was meaningless. A hiccup in the grander scheme, and that just makes the look in her eye grow a little wilder.

Stalemate, in all other timelines but this one.


	4. Chapter 4

“Why ‘Sparrow’?"

There’s a sniff, and he would never be used to the way her voice grated. “Robin was taken.” Smile that pulled and tugged at the marred skin, not in the kind that would hide it all away. Sparrow was still pretty, in a sense of many people were pretty to him.

But she knocks up the end of her hat, sun catching curls and the warped way that she grins. Blinking, a few times to get the feeling out of his eye, turning to stare over the horizon. Growing seas, and the idea that for once, he found nothing to really say.

Save for a light chuckle, as he replayed her words over again in his mind. What wit! Sparrow hears him over the crashing water, and. No, nothing had changed. Not as he meets her eye, expecting to see something, other than—


	5. Chapter 5

Sparrow is two steps outside the castle doors when there’s a shout. Organised movement down the cobble-road, fire drawing closer. Not the only one to raise a rifle high, as the carriage draws closer, horses shimmering in the rain and thunder, one more loud puff.

And whilst the insignia on the side may have been moderately welcome any other day, she has no time. Not now. Not when she had already made the plans and effort to scour the land. Reaver’s snivelling runt bows low in the limited light, grin all kinds of greasy that the weather wasn’t able to wash away. If anything, Sparrow lowered the end of her rifle enough, that it would easily find the middle of Barry’s forehead.

“Your _majesty_ … Mister Reaver, for you.”

Skin crawling at the title, with how it seems to drip through his lips, but that was beside the point. Sparrow opens her mouth, to state and be done with whatever Reaver was up to in that moment. Costing her time and effort, but the argument is lost to the howl of the wind. Door flying open.

Collective gasp, as the little lamp inside shows just enough. “Princess!”

It’s Walter who pushes through the soldiers, scooping up the princess into his arms. Maybe he says something. And maybe he doesn’t. Sparrow pays no mind to his behaviour, aside from one lingering glance towards her daughter. Waiting for the slow and deep breath, to sate some growing anxiety. The kind that prayed, that Reaver had not returned a corpse.

She lifts her eyes once more as Barry wrestles the door shut. Finds the amused gaze, curled in a knowing and cold twinkle. Reaver draws two fingers to his temple, in a mockery of a salute, that she can only return with a tilt of her head.


	6. Chapter 6

Lady Grey is on her side again. Watching Sparrow under the trees. Ignoring the sky over Bower Lake, eyebrows pinched in the middle that would give the impression one touch would smooth them. It was no surprise to Sparrow that many a man and woman had ever fallen to their knees in front of her in the past, but that was then.

Clearing her throat, she rolls her eyes over to look at the Lady. With cascading blonde hair and reanimated flesh, and eyes that just seemed a tad off if one looked too hard. Incredible that a corpse over five hundred years survived so long, but also just what magic Victor had used.

“What?”

“Most people would have taken advantage of what happened in the cemetery.”

Lips turning down into a frown, it was the sigh that gave Sparrow away. Same old argument. “I’m into a lot of things, just not necrophilia.”

“You’ve said. Several times, now.”

“So what do you want?”

“To understand you, even a little more.”

Sparrow had to wonder if the Lady was this chatty in her old life, with how she shifts onto her back as well now. Hands clasped over her stomach, half entombed in the grass. “I read the books about me, what happened since then. I remember the Hero of Oakvale, I think. What I did to… Amanda.

“I was a bad person.”

“You’re only ‘good’,” and Sparrow accompanies the word with two fingers drawn up, quotations to outline the use, “because some asshole decided to dig you up and lather you in a love spell.”

“So you believe I’m _actually_ bad?”

“I believe… that I don’t care.”

“Then why did you pull me out of that cemetery? Why did you kill Victor?”

There’s another clearing of the throat, that rolls and builds. Too much use, not enough warm up. Sparrow rubs her throat, inhaling slow and shakily. “You were going to be his sex toy, Elvira. Even you don’t deserve that.”

Silence falls, and Sparrow knows this will not be the last of this kind of conversation. Every few nights, since they had left Bowerstone with another handful of bounties clutched in hand, it was the same thing. Lady Grey, standing over a bandit, questioning the humanity. Lack of. Reading while they sat on the back of carts, trying to piece it altogether.

Sparrow couldn’t blame her, even as she pushes herself up to sit now. Part of her hoped in five centuries no one would try to dig her up, reanimate her with some fantastic love magic, and wash away all her sins. There would forever be gaps in her memory, and no one else had lived long enough to help her fill them.

“Victor said he loved me. Lots of people did at one time, but it sounded different when he said it.”

Fractures in her voice. Lady Grey couldn’t cry, but maybe she wishes that she could in that moment. And Sparrows knows that they’re both aware about love and obsession, and the differences in between. Yet there is no feeling in her now to abate those statements, questions, fears. So she closes her eyes, and hears the grass move, and the way Elvira doesn’t need to breathe.


	7. Chapter 7

In the half second Hammer had turned her back, Sparrow screamed. And it was _deafening_ , in every sense of the word, like ripples over a lake. Rolling outwards from where she was doubled over, clutching her face. One long continuous noise that, if Hammer looked close enough, seemed to cut into the stone around them.

No amount of steps forward could draw her closer. Although she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to be at the epicentre, with the way blood ran down Sparrow’s hands. Heavy and in rivets, with her head shaking back and forth. Still screaming. Or maybe it was that Will business, holding on, keeping her pain alive and real.

Driving the balverines mad with the sound, as they howl in response.

Hammer doesn’t mean to stumble, driving her weapon into the ground to hold herself upright. Head heavy and skin feeling sticky. Wet. Brush a finger against her cheek and finds blood. No, _that can’t be right. Can’t be right. Not at all._

There are splatters falling. Or rising. Theresa told her, that whilst Will was not an innate skill, Hammer would still feel. Still understand. And in that moment, she might’ve understood what the old witch was saying after all.

As she blinks, and time is ahead — or behind. To where Sparrow stands, heaving in the middle, splattered in blood and fur and two swords held firmly between her hands. Around her lay what remained of the balverines.

Shivering. Shaking. “Sparrow?”

With a slow and quiet breath, the screaming stops. And Sparrow stands, full height, face turned up. In the torchlight, Hammer can only see the grim and the blood. Perhaps, that was all she needed to see.


	8. Chapter 8

When Hammer finds her way downstairs, she was almost loathe to find Garth sitting in the corner. One she had her eye on, the moment they had walked in. Perhaps she should’ve said the words out loud, then and there, that it was to be her only place of reprieve from the other two who were in the room above.

Too late now. Two fresh ales in her hand, politeness overcoming distaste, and she makes her way through the last rabble of drunks to where he sat and studied. Gentle with the beer, so as not to give him any more reason to consider her barbaric, Hammer settles back in the chair, kicking her feet up on one nearby.

Could be nice. Only the sounds of the occasional hiccup and Garth’s insistent writing down here. Wouldn’t be the first time she’d slept in a chair.

At some point, Garth seems to finally look up, and notice the beer and Hammer’s presence. Putting two and two together, he closes his book, asking the obvious.

“Surely they still aren’t—”

“Yep.” Spoken around a yawn, despite the face he pulls. “What, like six hours and counting?”

It’s the disgusted noises that truly made it feel like Hammer was making progress. Until Garth walks past, knocking her feet off the chair. “I’m going to stop them.”

Snorting, Hammer waves him off, closing her eyes. “Good luck. I wouldn’t. Put money on Sparrow to be the one to shoot your head off.”

“I’ll take my chances.”


End file.
